


A Lapse In Judgement

by TalkingGrape



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Danny-centric, Eating Disorders, Suicide, also lets slap a big ol trigger warning on this fic for a lot of dark themes hoo boy, death but not death, its dp you kno how it is, no one actually has an eating disorder but its talked about for a bit, the other characters are mostly just briefly mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:29:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27277273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TalkingGrape/pseuds/TalkingGrape
Summary: It was more of a lapse in judgement than anything, really.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 51





	A Lapse In Judgement

It was more of a lapse in judgement than anything, really. He didn’t even write a note. And, isn’t that what people usually do when they… you know? When they plan it out and everything? They write a note? He hadn’t done that, he hadn’t even really believed it was going to work. And. Well. He was half right. Just like he was half dead already. A ghost of a fourteen year old kid possessing his own body after a stupid accident. 

All the pills really did was get rid of the body in that equation. 

No more half dead. Just dead. 

\---

It should probably be a lot more unsettling than it is, to bury his own body in the cover of night. All he can think, though, is that if he doesn’t hurry he might get caught breaking curfew  _ again, _ and if he gets caught breaking curfew again, he won’t be able to go to Sam’s house for movie night on Friday. 

It’s shock, probably. Maybe. He’s in some kind of shock. Or maybe this is a dream. Because he should definitely feel something. Anything. All he really feels is cold. 

He has to remind himself that he’s not a sociopath. It’s okay that he doesn’t feel guilty. Probably. He’s not a murderer. It was a suicide. A failed-but-successful suicide. He’s fine. It’s fine. 

\---

When he looks in the mirror, his reflection isn’t the Phantom. He was expecting to have the white hair and green eyes, but it’s like he didn’t get the memo that he left his body behind yet. He’s paler, his eyes dulled and maybe a little filmy in a way that’s probably unsettling to look at for too long. Nothing like the vibrant, acid green glow stick that he is when he’s the Phantom. Like dying in a big flash somehow made Phantom flashy too, while dying alone in his bedroom, pretending like he was just falling asleep made him… whatever he is now. 

If he focuses, he can still turn into Phantom. He can still be a hero. 

He’s not upset about it. He’s not relieved either. He doesn’t know what he feels. Tired, mostly. Cold. 

\---

When he first got his powers- because that’s what he called it, he never said he died in one dimension but lived in another, because that’s morbid and thinking about it too long led to bad thoughts and bad thoughts led to… well- he had trouble controlling them. Now it’s similar, but different. He has to focus a lot, not to be in control, but to  _ be _ at all. He’s not really  _ real  _ anymore. He fades in and out of existence, hardly able to have an affect on the corporeal world anymore without putting forth genuine effort. He’s sure it’d be exhausting, if he needed to sleep. 

It’s suspicious, he knows. He’s getting looks from Sam and Tucker and even Jazz. They ask if he’s feeling okay, and he’s not really lying when he says he is, because it’s not like he’s feeling  _ bad. _ He’s not feeling much at all. 

\---

Eating isn’t really something he can do anymore. He’s tried,  _ god he’s tried.  _ He misses his mom’s shitty cooking and NastyBurger’s even shittier fries, but keeping food down is something that eludes him. It’s something distinctly human. Something he’s no longer allowed to have. 

It’s depressingly easy to skip dinners, his parents are always too distracted to notice that he didn’t have dinner yesterday either, or the day before that, or the day before. Jazz isn’t so easily fooled, but he lets her and everyone else think that he has a different problem than what he actually does, ignoring her pitying stares. 

A rumor spreads, quick and nasty and vicious, about his ‘eating disorder.’ He doesn’t try to stop it, hell, he encourages it. It helps explain away his sickly complexion and the fact that he doesn’t eat lunch anymore. 

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz confront him about it. It’s a sad little intervention in his bedroom that Danny has to grimace and sit through, because he can’t tell them the truth. He never thought he’d see the day where Phantom was the smallest of his secrets. 

They all cry except for Danny. He can’t really cry anymore. He doesn’t think it has anything to do with being dead, he’s definitely seen ghosts cry before. He just. He doesn’t think he personally has it in him to cry. To feel sad. Guilt though? Guilt is becoming his default. Guilt and a bone deep exhaustion that he can’t do anything about because he  _ can’t fucking sleep. _

It twists his stomach up in knots to hear his friends and sister beg him to get better, to at least try, because they know the statistics, and eating disorders can be fatal. 

\---

Ember knows. She takes one look at Phantom and sees straight past him and into Danny and something in her eyes goes soft and she just  _ knows. _ She was moments away from blasting Danny through a billboard (he’s been getting so reckless lately, but he’s just tired, it’s okay, he’s fine, it’s fine) when she just. Stops. Drops her guitar and stares for just a little too long. And then she leaves, and Danny doesn’t have it in him to chase after her. 

Her attacks on Amity Park after that are half-hearted at best, but that’s okay, because Danny’s defense of Amity Park is half-hearted at best too. 

\--

He’s become accustomed to being treated like glass. Fragile. Breakable. Maybe even like he’s already broken. Eyes follow him wherever he goes, and it only gets worse and worse. He doesn’t know how much longer he can keep this up. 

It all builds up so slowly that when it comes to a head, Danny doesn’t really even notice. He doesn’t see the way people go pale at the sight of him when he walks into school, too used to their stares and frantic whispers already. He’s too used to the pity, to the feeling of dread and unease that he brings with him everywhere he goes. So when Mr. Lancer can barely stumble through his lecture of the day, unable to call on Danny when he actually raises his hand for once, it’s not too much of a red flag. 

Sam has to be the one to literally shove the news in his face at lunch, makeup running as she thrusts her phone at him with shaking hands, web browser pulled up to a breaking news article that’d make ice race through Danny’s veins if he wasn’t always so fucking cold already:  **Police Identify Remains of 14 Y/O Daniel Fenton in Amity National Forest**

**Author's Note:**

> i dont really have anything to say for myself aside from 
> 
> oops


End file.
